Lubricant-grease.



' FRANK E. MARINER, or GULL rom'r,

runrnlvrmn COMPANY, or GULL POINT, FLORIDA,

Application filed October 2, 19-13. Serial No. 792,981.

FLORIDA, ASSIGNOB. TO THE PENSACOLA TAR 8a A CORPORATION OF FLORIDA.

LUBRICANT-GREASE.

No Drawing.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, FRANK E. MARINER, a citizen of the United States, residing at Gull Point, in the county of Escambia and State of Florida, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Lubricant-Grease, of which the following is a specification.v

Known lubricant greases, and more particularly axle-grease, are composed of approximately 20 parts of rosin oil, 80 parts of the residuum of petroleum distillation, or other cheap mineral oil, and 20 to parts of milk of lime. These ingredients are usually combined by thoroughly mixing the rosin oil .with the mineral oil, then adding the milk of limev for its saponifying action, and agitating the mixture and allowing it to stand until set. The action of the rosin oil, which is the most expensive of the ingredients used, is that of a grease-set, meaning that it has the property of so combining with lime as to produce a compound which imparts proper consistency to the grease. It is ordinarily produced, in various ways as to details of procedure, by subjecting common rosin, or colophonium, to rapid destructive distillation at a temperature of from 350 C. to 400 0., the distillate or rosin oil, commercially known as first run or kidney-oil carrying with it about 4:0 to 50 per cent. of the abieticacid content of the rosin, which possesses the grease-setting property, the remainder being devoid of that property. In this process of distillation about to per cent. of .the rosin is distilled over as kidney-oil, the rest being pitch, oils useless for grease-setting purposes, rosin-naphtha and as. Thus only about 30 to 35 per cent. of t e original rosin is obtained in the form of abietic acid, which is grease-set material.

By distilling under a more or lessv high vacuum, or withsuperheated steam, rosin from which the turpentine has been thoroughly extracted by distilling the same a peculiar distillate is produced which, as I have discovered, possesses superior grease-setting properties. During this process of distillation without decomposition, composition, the rosin undergoes, for reasons unknown to me, molecular change, producing aproduct which solidifies into a mass resembling rosin, though by thoroughly stirring the distillate while it is cooling, whereby the product assumes a hard, sugary,

Specification of Letters Patent.

or material decrystalline structure, it becomes adapted to resist melting under warm or moderate tem peratures, and therefore to be transported, like rosin, in slack cooperage, without materlal or undesirable change in its condition,

While rosin oil requires to be shipped in tight and comparatively expensive packages. The abietic-acid content of this distillate, when the rosin from which it-is produced is distilled under a high vacuum, say of 28 lnches and a temperature of about 270 C. to 305 C.,-is about 92 to 94 per cent. of the resin treated, showing that practically all of the latter is carried over as abietic acid, all of which has grease-setting property. The following table shows, according to experlments which I have conducted, the varying percentages of this abietic acid from rosin distilled under different degrees of vacuum and temperature;

68?, abietic acid from 5 in. vacuum and 280-345 O. 70 0 U i l N H I H U 79 a .As will therefore be seen, by distilling the Patented Sept. 1, 1914.

rosin under 'a-pressure below atmospheric, a

marked increase ensues in the yield of this desirable form of abietic acid, which becomes greaterwith increase in the amount of vacuum employed; and I have found that the grease-setting property of the resultant hard mass is in proportion to its abietic-acid value. This is not the case with rosin, which, though the usual analytical tests show it to be practically all abietic-acid, is not a grease-set, showing that my aforesaid change. This distillate not only possesses superior grease-setting properties owing to its peculiar grease-setting value, but it is much more economical as a grease-set than rosin oil, since but about one-half of the quantity is required, namely only about 8 to 10 parts to parts of the mineral oil and 20 to 30 parts of milk of lime, the lubricant materlal being compounded in the same way as when rosin oil is used, by dissolving the distillate in the mineral oil, adding the milk of lime, or other suitable alkali, and permitting the grease to set.

If the rosin be distilled by the use of steam, the latter should preferably be not only superheated, but should be conducted into the rosin in the still through aperfoproduct has undergone radical chemical fire, which, however, is not necessary, but

preferable because more economical, since it obviates the need of carrying highly superheated steam. Moreover, the rosin can be heated in the still to the comparatively-low boiling point essential to carrying it over in the presence-of steam, which then becomes superheated by contact with the mass of hot rosin; and the bulk of the rosin may be distilled by a temperature of about 275 (3.,

though the distillation starts at a much lower temperature, while at that specified, the distillation proceeds rapidly and steadily and continues'until most of the rosin has been distilled over in the form of this peculiar article of abietic acid. The last 8 to 10 per cent. of the rosin, however, .requires the temperature to be raised somewhat to carry it over. Practically all of the rosin may be distilled over by this method.

While'the distillate is the same, whether produced by the described practice in 'vacuo,

being simpler and more economical, being less expensive in the matter of apparatus required and easier of operation.

The rosin itself is not claimed in this application, but is the subject matter of applicants companion application Serial Number 808,486, filed'December 23, 1913. I

What I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is 1. A lubricant-grease comprising a mineral oil, distilled rosin having an abletic acid content of more than 60%, and a saponifying medium. V

2. A lubricant-grease comprising a mixture of substantially ninety partsmineral oil, and eight parts rosin, having an abietic acid content of upward of 60% and twenty parts milk of lime.

. FRANK E. MARINER.

In presence of L. HEISLAR, A. J. FLoYn. 

